Sacred Sound and the Transcultural Practice of Kirtan
Ebook
Ancient ideas on sacred sound find a very tangible and lively expression in the practice of kirtan, which is a broad term referring to various forms of devotional singing commonly done in South Asian traditions. Kirtan is a core practice in the Hindu and Sikh faiths that is becoming increasingly popular around the world among people of all ethnicities, thus developing as a transnational and transcultural phenomenon. Indeed, the broader cultural implications and deepening social penetration that this practice has achieved over the past five decades suggest that it is attaining permanent status in the world’s religious soundscape. Sacred Sound and the Transcultural Practice of Kirtan explores the practice of kirtan as it has been re-created in the United States, Canada, and Brazil through multi-sided interactions that generate new cultural patterns in an ongoing process of cross-pollination. Approaching kirtan as a type of ‘technology of the self’, Gustavo Moura combines textual, historical, and ethnographic sources to address the questions of how this practice is adopted and adapted in the Americas and how it has been shaping identities, communities, and traditions.
List of Tables and Figures
Introduction
Chapter 1: Indian Theories of Sacred Sound
Chapter 2: Kirtan Comes to America
Chapter 3: The Transculturation of Kirtan
Chapter 4: Tradition, Adaptation, and Authenticity
Chapter 5: The Soft Institutionalization of Kirtan
Conclusion
Epilogue: The Post-Pandemic Renewal of Kirtan
Appendix 1: Spotify Data for the Kirtan Artists Cited
Bibliography
About the Author
Over the past few decades, the Indian devotional singing tradition known as Kirtan has become a global phenomenon, encompassing many new forms and styles, and utilizing a variety of musical instruments. As both a scholar and practitioner, Gustavo Moura, in Sacred Sound and the Transcultural Practice of Kirtan, has provided a descriptive map of the types of Kirtan across several continents, as well as a ‘sound’ theological and historical foundation for understanding what more and more appears to be a major transformational sacred practice around the world.
Gustavo Moura’s Sacred Sound and the Transcultural Practice of Kirtan presents a fascinating overview of the various social and historical influences that inform the practice of kirtan today, focusing on kirtan in North and South America. This book illustrates how the ways that kirtan is practiced and given meaning in these new contexts result from a variety of complex and transcultural influences that can be traced to both South Asia and the West. Moura’s study also tackles several key issues in the study of kirtan outside of South Asia, including the authenticity of musical style, appropriation, and kirtan’s imbrication with economic exchange. This study represents an important contribution to the study of music and the transplantation of religious thought and practice.
- Title: Sacred Sound and the Transcultural Practice of Kirtan
- Author: Gustavo Moura
- Publisher: Lexington Books
- Print Publication Date: 2024
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781666960921, 9781666960914, 1666960918, 1666960926
- Resource ID: LLS:9781666960921
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-08-07T03:19:57Z
Gustavo Moura is a scholar of religion with academic training and lived experience in South Asian traditions.